Arthur's All-nighter
by petrous
Summary: High school exams are approaching, and Arthur's studying habits aren't healthy. USUK.


Alfred never paid much attention to the school year passing. Club activities followed sports day followed culture festival; he never worried about what was going to happen next week. But end-of-year exams never took him by surprise, because a good two months beforehand, his classmate Arthur Kirkland would hunker down and do a credible impression of a boy trying to drown himself in highlighted file paper.

The first time this happened, Alfred simply watched in baffled amazement. It didn't seem possible that anyone could take revision that seriously. Arthur started carrying around ten textbooks at a time, switched from his beloved tea to tar-like coffee pinched from the new Turkish student, and even temporarily quit the Magic Club.

Alfred had the desk next to him. They had been in a note war since week two of first year, when, in one particularly boring math lesson, Alfred had flicked a pellet of paper at him that said _Fountain pens are for nerds_, with a helpful diagram of a ballpoint pen sketched below. In case it wasn't clear, he'd followed it up with _(Note war declared)_, attached to his eraser and scoring a strategic hit on Arthur's nose. Things escalated from there. By the next week they were engaged in a pleasant exchange of low-level hostilities which brightened up Alfred's math lessons immensely.

The note war was abandoned in exam season. Not for lack of trying on Alfred's part, but Arthur developed a ferocious immunity to anything that wasn't study. A note could land in his ear and he'd just fish it out and drop it on the floor without looking at it. Alfred began to seriously suspect possession by aliens.

**00.25 am**

"You can't drink that much coffee and sleep," Alfred said, late one night when he'd come down to the common room and found Arthur in the tiny kitchen space in the corner, kettle in one hand, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like an incantation over the coffee pot. Alfred looked at the size of the pot. "Scratch that," he said, "I don't think you can drink that much coffee and _live_. What are you doing, Kirkland?"

"Algebra," Arthur said, curling his arm protectively around the coffee pot. "Piss off, Jones."

Alfred opened his named cupboard and rummaged for the midnight snack he'd come down for. "I don't care what you do with yourself," he said. "But exams aren't for two weeks. You don't need to be pulling all-nighters." He shot a sideways glance at Arthur, casually, as if he really didn't care that much. There was that tiny frown between Arthur's eyebrows that Alfred usually thought was cute, but he didn't remember seeing Arthur without it for ages now. There was also an odd glint to Arthur's green eyes, and his cheekbones seemed more prominent.

"Hey, when did you last eat?" Alfred said.

Arthur hesitated, as if trying to recall, then his expression locked down into irritation like shutters slamming across. "None of your business." He took the coffee pot back to the other side of the common room, where there were blankets and cushions and textbooks strewn around. Ring binders made a bulky sort of outer wall.

"You made yourself a _study fort_?" Alfred said, following him. He leaned down to pick up a binder off the wall, fascinated.

Arthur yanked the file out of his hands violently. "Leave that alone! I'm working in here!"

"Whoah," Alfred said, opening his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Sorry." Arthur glared at him and determinedly opened a leather-bound journal full of equations.

Alfred sat down cross-legged, doughnut in hand, and grinned. "An Englishman's study fort is his castle, huh?" The wall reached about to his chest, sitting down. Arthur must be single-handedly keeping the stationary industry in business.

Was Arthur cracking a tiny smile? "You're sitting in the moat, Jones."

Alfred pushed himself back a bit on the worn carpet. "Better? Is there a drawbridge?"

"It's up," Arthur informed him. "Go to bed, Jones, I'm working. And you're a lazy idiot who's unfairly good at distracting me and bad for my grades."

"I'm good at distracting you?" Alfred said, somewhat delighted. He'd never thought Arthur even gave him a passing thought outside the note wars.

The faintest touch of red tinged Arthur's face. "No. Go _away_."

"In a bit," Alfred said, taking a bite of his doughnut. "I spill crumbs if I eat in bed," he explained.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Arthur said, and bent his head to his work.

**1.12 am**

"What are you doing?" Arthur said, looking up from a French dictionary and blinking to clear the study fog from his eyes.

Alfred looked up from his phone and pulled out one earphone. "Huh?"

"Is that a study program?" Arthur said. "On your phone?"

"Nope, it's a game where you shoot food," Alfred said enthusiastically, tilting the screen towards Arthur. "Look, you load the hamburgers in this catapult, and then-"

"No, stop it, shut up!" Arthur said, covering his ears. "I can feel myself getting stupider!" He banged his book shut. "No wonder I can't concentrate, with you there playing some ridiculous _game_."

"It's one in the morning," Alfred said, pulling out the other earphone. "You can't concentrate because normal people are asleep. You should be asleep."

"I am _perfectly awake_," Arthur snapped. "I have French vocabulary, three sections of Literature and a Chemistry test paper to get through tonight." He certainly looked awake, if twitchy. The coffee pot was nearly empty.

Alfred eyed him. "Your hands are shaking."

Arthur clenched them on his pen and journal. "They are not."

"Did you even eat lunch today?"

"I wasn't hungry."

"Have you even eaten lunch this _week_?"

"I had it on Monday!"

"Monday?" Alfred said incredulously. "Kirkland, it's _Thursday._"

Arthur looked like he was seriously considering throwing his journal at him, but he just clutched it tighter. "_Go to bed_."

"I'll go to bed if you'll go to bed," Alfred countered.

"Go to hell," Arthur said, and turned away to get out another stack of paper.

**2.30 am**

"Here," Alfred said, leaning over the binder walls and handing Arthur a steaming mug.

Arthur reached for it distractedly, completely immersed in muttering French words, and didn't pause until he had it under his nose, about to take a sip. "This isn't coffee," he said.

"It's hot chocolate," Alfred said. "You're all out of coffee." About 2 o'clock, while Arthur had been buried in chemistry, Alfred had moved all the coffee grounds to the very top shelf. One hidden benefit to being several inches taller than Arthur. "Drink up," he said.

Arthur hesitated. "Why did you make me hot chocolate?"

_Because you're jittery and stressed and I want that crease between your eyes to go away just for a moment. _"No reason," Alfred said, picking up his phone again. His fingers were getting stiff from the early-hours chill. He eyed the blankets. "Hey, can I come in the fort?"

"No," Arthur snapped. "No invaders in the fort."

"If I promise to study, can I come in the fort?"

"No," Arthur said. "Go to bed."

Alfred shrugged. "I will if you will. Want help with that vocab list? I can test you."

Arthur's expression froze in indecision. Come to think of it, Alfred had never seen Arthur studying with anyone. He'd barely ever seen Arthur doing _anything_ with anyone, apart from arguing.

"Hand it over," Alfred said, extending an arm over the wall. "Even forts have ceasefires."

Their gazes met for a split second, Arthur's green eyes very wide. Then the moment was gone, and Arthur was scowling and looking away again. "From page fifteen," he said. "Try not to butcher the pronunciation _too _badly."

**3.01 am**

"_Vous… parl_- thingy," Alfred said, stifling a jaw-splitting yawn in the middle. "Wait. _Parlez._"

"You speak," Arthur said. He was leaning back against the wall, his head tilted back, staring at the ceiling with concentration. His hands weren't shaking any more. The moon had set outside the common room window.

_"Nous écrivons_."

There was a pause, silent in the school night. There was a creak as the building shifted around them, and an owl outside.

"Kirkland?"

"Hm? Oh- we write," Arthur said, as if there was something else on his mind. He raised his head. "Look, Jones," he said, looking anywhere but Alfred, "you can come in if you like."

Alfred snapped off in the middle of another yawn, swallowing it, and a grin spread across his face. "Drawbridge down?"

"For the moment," Arthur said, curling his legs up against himself defensively. "Don't disturb the walls."

Alfred carefully clambered into the fort. "I claim this blanket," he said, holding it aloft like a flag.

"Put that down," Arthur said irritably. "Concentrate. This is my future academic career."

Alfred settled down. The fort wasn't quite big enough for two and they were almost touching shoulders, but he didn't mind. The warmth was nice, and there was something pleasing about Arthur's slim, blanket-wrapped shoulder next to his. He wanted to fall asleep on it. No – he wanted Arthur to fall asleep on him. Maybe both.

Sadly, in the Kirkland study fort, the study program ruled. Arthur was glaring at him.

Alfred looked down again at the book. "_J'adore_," he began obediently.

**3.20 am**

Alfred's yawns were even setting Arthur off. "_Tu dormes_."

"You sleep," Arthur said. He had gradually sunk to slumping against the wall. "Subjunctive."

"_Il dort_."

"He sleep- _Jones_." Arthur sat bolt upright, sounding disgusted. "I can see your hidden agenda."

Arthur grinned up at him. He was half lying down, his feet sticking through the binder walls and reducing them to a disarray of words and facts and stationary. "I was so subtle, though."

"Oh, give that here," Arthur said, snatching the sheet from him. "I have to move on to Literature anyway."

"Anything you say," Alfred said affably. He had made another round of hot chocolates halfway through the never-ending vocabulary list of doom, and split his last doughnut just to make sure Arthur ate something. The common room floor was uncomfortable, Arthur's knee was pressing into his shoulder, and he was pretty sure there was a permanent ring binder mark in his ankle, but he was full and sleepy and inexplicably happy.

"How are you going to pass these exams?" Arthur said. "I've never seen you do any work."

Alfred shrugged. "I'll cram on the last day. I get by."

"That's utterly irresponsible." Arthur said. "Lazy idiot," he added, but he didn't sound so convinced by his own words.

Alfred wasn't going to sleep. He was just resting his head for a moment. "You're coming to lunch with me tomorrow," he mumbled. "If I have to get you in a headlock."

"I am not," Arthur said, sounding highly indignant.

Alfred suspected he was scowling, but couldn't see his face, since that would require the herculean effort of opening his eyes. "'m making sure you eat. Headlocks optional."

"You had better not," Arthur said crossly. "I have powers beyond the ken of mortal man."

"No you don't," Alfred mumbled. "Quit the magic club last month."

"How did you know I – Jones? Jones, are you falling asleep?"

"No," Alfred tried to say, but it came out like _mmph_, and he didn't hear anything more.

**5.43 am**

The air was chilly, but there was a warm, comfortable presence against his side that was more than making up for it. Even if it was a bit heavy. Alfred surfaced slowly, blinking a couple of times to refocus, and found Arthur sprawled over his shoulder and part of his chest, his hair silver-blonde in the moonlight. A couple of flyaway hairs were tickling Alfred's neck. He felt an inordinate fondness spread like warmth in his chest.

But it was nearly dawn, and sleeping down here was making him stiff. He levered himself up to a sitting position, careful not to wake Arthur.

Another journal had fallen from Arthur's hands. This one was bound in white leather with _Literature _in neat calligraphy on the label. Alfred glanced at the page it had been opened to. There were lines of poetry in Arthur's cramped and spidery handwriting, copied out, but no explanatory notes around them.

_Or leave a kiss but in the cup,  
And I'll not look for wine.  
The thirst that from the soul doth rise  
Doth ask a drink divine  
_

Alfred glanced at the Literature notes. They were all for _War and Peace_. They didn't have a poetry exam this year.

In a suddenly thoughtful mood, he looked at the planes of Arthur's face in the dim overhead light, and had a notion that maybe – maybe – this was worth more effort than a note war. A lot more.

He gathered up Arthur in his arms, picking him up with not too much effort. All those skipped meals had made him lighter than he should be, and Alfred resolved again to do something about that. Arthur made a small noise and rolled over in his arms, not waking. His face rested against Alfred's chest.

Alfred tried not to make too much noise as he took him upstairs. In the dark everything was an obstacle. He nearly sent both of them flat on their faces when there was one more stair than he expected, but saved himself and miraculously didn't drop Arthur or wake the whole building. He stood for a moment, trying to slow down his heartbeat, but all he heard were faint snores.

Arthur's bed was a few down from his in the boys' dormitory. Alfred laid him in there and drew the covers over him, then sat down by the foot of it, frowning intently, and started looking up poetry sites on his phone.

**6.55 am **

"Jones?" Arthur said. He was leaning off his bed and over Alfred's shoulder, shaking him awake. "Why the hell are you asleep there?" His eyes caught Alfred's phone, the screen still lit. "And why were you looking at – Ben Jonson –" he broke off abruptly.

Alfred yawned. "I was studying," he said. "Breakfast?"

**10.27 am**

In math, Alfred casually dropped a note on Arthur's desk as he was returning from the blackboard. It read, _Lt. Kirkland, exams invading again! Study fort! Tonight! P.S. Lunch or headlock._

Arthur read it, and smiled.


End file.
